


Don't Fly Away

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Post 3x22, and why don't we get to see simmons be gentle anymore, canon compatible, the bus kids are my jam, the fitzdaisy brotp gives me life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-07-11 03:56:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7027486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Fitz is the only one who can contact Daisy when she leaves after 3x22, as she gave him a burner phone and calls him every week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Fly Away

_don't fly away_  
_open my hands, you're free_  
_praying you'll come back to me_

\- Butterfly, Delta Goodrem

-

“I’m going to go check on Elena,” Simmons murmured, giving Fitz’ hand a squeeze as they parted ways. Daisy had made up her mind, well and truly. Whether they liked it or not, their time to stop her was over.

Fitz headed back to his bunk. He couldn’t help thinking of Daisy’s first day – he’d been so excited to have her near him. Of course, that had partly been because of his ridiculous crush, but even once the crush had passed, it had been great to have her there. They’d talked until late, and thrown things over their partition to each other, and snuck into each other’s bunks in the middle of the night, especially once things had started getting heavy. Even once they’d moved into the base, they’d held onto that one. It was hard to think of Daisy out there all on her own, leaving her room still half-full like she’d cut herself out of the image.

He sighed as he pushed open the door to his own room. He’d been where she had before – almost – so he __knew__ she was in no state to listen to his insistence that he loved her and she shouldn’t do this. He could only wish – as she had, and as Bobbi and the others had, watching him desperately scour the world for Simmons – that he could make sure she was as safe as possible while she pursued whatever it was that she was pursuing.

And it seemed, his wish had been answered.

Fitz frowned, approaching the bed. His momento box had been removed from its shelf, and a post-it note stuck to the lid, reading only: _Fitz._

He peeled the sticky note up first, and turned it every which way, checking for a clue or code she might have left. Finding nothing, he turned his attention to the box. Drawing open the lid slowly, afraid of what he might find (a prized possession? A goodbye note?), it took a while for Fitz to recognise the foreign object lying atop his collection.

A cellphone.

(A burner phone.)

Underneath it, another note.

_Don’t tell **ANYBODY**. _

Fitz glanced over his shoulder. It was instinctive, the desire to run to Simmons with this new and somewhat comforting information. But the bold letters and underline were unambiguous in their meaning. _Not even her._

He took a deep breath, and put the lid back on the box.

-

_Brr brr. Brr brr._

Fitz groaned. As spies’ minds were wont to do – especially those that had been endangered as often as he had – he had leapt to waking immediately, only to see that the time on the clock before him read 3:17AM.

_Brr brr. Brr brr._

There it was; the sound that had woken him – the phone, he realised after a moment.

Fitz threw the blankets away, and cursed at the rush of cold as he leapt across the room to the shelf where he kept his momento box. Taking a second to hush his voice, he answered the call.

“Daisy?”

 _“Shh,”_ she hissed. _“Are you alone?”_

“Yeah,” he snapped. “It’s 3AM. It – it is 3AM, right? You haven’t left the timezone already?”

 _ _“_ Can’t tell you that. And sorry. I just really didn’t want anybody else to know. I almost didn’t leave this with you, but…” _She sighed, contemplating her own weaknesses and the consequences of her choices. _“But, well, I couldn’t leave you alone, now could I?”_

There was desperation in the silence that she let linger. A plea in it, that he not run to Simmons, that he not track her down, even though he probably could – or he could at least put up a fight. But more than that, too, a plea that he would somehow be able to make her feel safe, like he had when she had first discovered her powers. That he would be able to make her feel loved, when it felt like she could only destroy love. That he would be able to make some part of this, any part of it, feel __normal.__

“So,” he posed, trying to think of a word that would not make her think he was leading her, trying to trick her into exposing herself. “How was the…journey?”

 _“Good so far. Gotta say, it’s nice to eat some off-base food for once. I had the most epic chocolate muffin today. There were like, four kinds of chocolate, at least. Five, maybe, even. I’m surprised they managed to fit any muffin in there, honestly.”_ She laughed a little, and Fitz could picture the small smile on her face, slowly pulling itself out from under the shadow of grief and guilt. He smiled too, at the thought.

“Good old base food for me,” he muttered. “Although, we had some proper fresh fruit in, so that was nice.”

_“Jemma making sure everyone’s getting their two and five?”_

“Five and seven, more like,” Fitz remarked. “She cut a whole packet of carrots for dinner tonight. I think she’s a bit stressed about Elena.”

_“How is she?”_

“Stable. She’s going to be okay. And we don’t think it will affect her powers, they might even help her heal faster. The main issue will be whether the scar tissue will be able to withstand the speed, so Jemma asked her to slow down until it’s back to full strength.”

_“How did she react to that?”_

“About as well as you would have. But she’s not stupid. Plus, Mack practically offered to sit on her if necessary.”

 _“Or even if not,”_ Daisy added, with a brief sparkle of mischief in her tone.

 _“I’m happy for them,”_ she continued, more solemnly. __“_ At least somebody gets what they deserve after all this.”_

Fitz held his breath. They had, of course, held off on telling Daisy about the state of their relationship. It felt too cruel, like rubbing it in her face rather than offering her hope. But here, she had left the opportunity wide open for him.  
  
Or not.

_“Gotta go. I’ve got to get on the- my next…my next transport. I’ll call you next Thursday, same time. Be alone.”_

-

Weeks passed, with a brief phone call every hop, skip and jump across time. They tried not to talk about the large-scale details of where they were and what was going on, instead focussing on food and microcosmic events, and the occasional conspiracy article. Once, they watched an episode of the X Files.

It was still hard for Fitz to keep it from Simmons, watching her worry and mourn, but at the same time, he had a promise to keep to Daisy, and that was important too. Besides, it would have driven Simmons up the wall, to be able to contact Daisy but not, as she saw it, help her. She would want to offer a solution, not understanding – or at least, not accepting – that Daisy just needed to bleed for a while. She could never stand by and let her friend suffer like that. Perhaps it would be best after all, Fitz thought, that she not know. At least, not for now. Daisy was coming back, eventually, he trusted in that.

Simmons, it seemed, did not.

He found her bent over a newspaper one day at breakfast, biting her lip and humming, high-pitched, upset. When he pushed her tea across the table toward her, she looked up at him with tears beginning to spill over the rims of her eyes.

“Is she okay?” she demanded tearfully.  
  
Fitz hesitated, unsure how to answer.

“I know you know,” she begged. “You don’t have to tell me how, just, please, I need to hear it.”

So Fitz slid into his seat, and covered Simmons’ hands with his own.

“She’s great,” he promised. “Still grieving, still some rough patches, all that, but she’s okay. She told me, the other day, she picked up a baby bird…”

He began to recount the anecdotes Daisy had given him, and watched Simmons visibly settle. How long had she known, he wondered, about the secrets that he and Daisy were keeping from her? He squeezed her hand as he spoke, and tried to imbue her with the reassurance that their privacy was not being held against her, it was only a different type of bond that they shared. Simmons was the voice in Daisy’s head, reminding her to eat healthy and stay safe, and inspiring her to protect a little orphaned bird and help it learn to fly.

That night, he told Daisy about Simmons’ concerns. Hopefully, he had quelled them for a while, but it wouldn’t last forever. Daisy asked questions, digging for every detail of Simmons’ reactions, and by the end of it, he almost expected her to declare that she was packing it in and coming home immediately. Unfortunately, that expectation was grounded in hope: she was still far from healing, and in fact, some old wounds may have been reopened at the thought of Simmons’ distress over her.

“She just wants to hear from you,” Fitz promised. “She just wants to know that you’re okay.”

-

The next day, a grainy and distorted image – hardly more than a silhouette of a girl – dominated the front page. Almost everything about it was hard to make out, but for those who knew her well enough, it was obvious. It was obvious in the way she stood, the way she held her head and braced her arms at her side. (Not to mention, in they way she must have shaken the cameras at a rapid, vibration pace to tremble the image like that, but that was cheating.)

“Daisy,” Simmons murmured, smiling in awe. “Look.”

Of course, Fitz must have asked or otherwise prompted her to do something like this, but that didn’t take away from the relief and wonder of seeing her best friend in person – or as close to it as they could safely get at the moment – for the first time in months.

Fitz sidled up to Simmons and wrapped his arms around her waist, looking over her shoulder at the image she was still engrossed in, apparently trying to commit it to memory. He was startled by the longing and the joy and relief that swelled up in his chest. Having been able to speak to Daisy relatively often – more often than at the Base, even, near the end there – he had not noticed how the desire to actually __see__ her had snuck up on him.

Fitz wrapped his arms tighter around Simmons’ waist, resisting the urge to reach for the picture and find how flat and empty it was. Best just to savour it from afar, as what it was intended to be: a promise that Daisy was okay, and that she loved them. And that – hopefully, one day – she would come home.


End file.
